Türkçe ansiklopedi, sözlük, genel başvuru ve bilgi sitesi   
  		  Yardım
  Rastgele    

Bell System

The Bell System was a trademark and service mark used by the United States telecommunications company American Telephone & Telegraph Company (AT&T) and its affiliated companies to co-brand their extensive circuit-switched telephone network and their affiliations with each other. The telephone system had a near-monopoly on the U.S. telephone market until its divestiture in 1984.[1] The Bell System was commonly called by the nickname Ma Bell.

History

Enlarge picture
Bell System trademark used by AT&T and affiliated companies from 1921 to 1939


The Bell trademark (pictured right) used by both the AT&T corporation and the regional operating corporations from 1921 to 1939 to co-brand themselves under a single Bell System trademark would have the regional operating corporation's name where the "name of associated company" appears in this boilerplate version of the trademark. Phones themselves were made by Western Electric, a wholly-owned subsidiary of AT&T, who also owned or controlled the local Bell System companies responsible for local phone service. Member telephone companies paid a fixed fraction of their revenues as a license fee to support Bell Labs.

As a result, by 1940 the Bell System effectively owned most telephone service in the United States, from local and long-distance service to the telephone itself. With control of the phone system, Bell could effectively prohibit its customers from connecting phones not made or sold by Bell companies to the system without leasing fees. For example, if a customer desired a type of phone not leased by the local Bell monopoly, one had to purchase the phone at cost, give it to the phone company, then pay a 're-wiring' charge and a monthly lease fee in order to use it. An oft-heard remark at the time was "Ma Bell has you by the calls".

A 1956 consent decree limited AT&T to engaging in only activities related to a maximum of 85% of the United States' national telephone network and certain government contracts, which precluded the Bell System from extending its reach into the fledgling computer industry and from continuing to hold interests in Canada and the Caribbean. The Bell System's Canadian operations included the Bell Canada regional operating company and the Northern Electric manufacturing subsidiary of the Bell System's Western Electric equipment manufacturer. Northern Electric and Bell Canada were spun off in 1956 as separate companies outside of the Bell System proper. The Bell System's Caribbean regional operating companies were sold to the International Telephone & Telegraph Co., later known as ITT.

The Bell System also owned various Caribbean regional operating companies, as well as 54% of NEC and a post-WW II re-construction relationship with NTT before the 1956 boundaries were implaced. Before 1956, the Bell System's reach was truly gargantuan, as the list below of now-divested formerly-held corporations indicates. Even during the period from 1956 to 1984, the Bell System's dominant reach into all forms of communications was pervasive within the United States and influential in telecommunication standardization throughout the industrialized world.

The 1984 Bell System divestiture that brought an end to the affiliation branded as the Bell System was the result of a lawsuit alleging illegal practices by the Bell System companies to stifle competition in the telecommunications industry; the lawsuit was brought against it by the United States Department of Justice (DOJ). That lawsuit was filed in 1974, and was settled on January 8, 1982, displacing the former restrictions that AT&T and the DOJ had agreed to in 1956 based on a previous anti-trust lawsuit filed by the DOJ in 1949 that alleged that AT&T and its Bell System operating companies were using its near monopoly in telecommunications to attempt to establish allegedly unfair advantage in related technologies, especially the fledgling computer industry.

Prior to the 1984 break-up that ended the Bell System, the Bell System included not only AT&T corporate and its long-lines long-distance routing but also Bell Operating Companies.

On March 5, 2006, AT&T Inc. announced plans to merge with BellSouth, which would provide services to 70 million subscribers in 22 states, and gain 100% ownership of Cingular Wireless. The merger was finalized by the FCC on December 29, 2006.

Logo history

Present-day usage of the Bell name

Enlarge picture
Bell System trademark used by AT&T and affiliated companies from 1969 to 1983


The Bell System trademark (as diagram) and service mark (as the words Bell System in text) was used before January 1, 1984, when the AT&T divestiture of its regional operating companies took effect.

Of the various resulting 1984 spinoffs, only BellSouth actively used and promoted the Bell name and logo for its entire history, from the 1984 break up to its merger with the new AT&T in 2006. Similarly, cessation of using either the Bell name or logo occurred for many of the other companies more than a decade after the 1984 break up as part of an acquisition-related rebranding. The others have only used the marks on rare occasions to maintain their trademark rights, even less now that they have adopted names conceived long after divestiture. Examples include Verizon, which still uses the Bell logo on its trucks and payphones, and Qwest, formerly US West, which licenses the Northwestern Bell and Mountain Bell names to Unical Enterprises, who makes telephones under the Northwestern Bell name. Qwest also has a rural subsidiary in Oregon, Malheur Bell, that continues to use the Bell name and logo.

Cincinnati Bell, a local franchise of the Bell System that was never wholly owned by AT&T and existed separately prior to 1984, also continues to use the Bell name. It stopped using the Bell logo in the summer of 2006.

In 1984, each regional Bell operating company was assigned a set list of names they were allowed to use in combination with the Bell marks. Again, aside from Cincinnati Bell and Malheur Bell, none of these Bell System names are currently in use in the United States. For example, Southwestern Bell used both the Bell name and the circled-bell trademark until SBC opted for all of its companies to do business under the "SBC" name in 2002. Bell Atlantic used the Bell name and circled-bell trademark until renaming itself Verizon in 2000.

Of the various resulting 1956 spinoffs, only Bell Canada continues to use the Bell name, although cessation of using either the Bell name and circled-bell trademark occurred for some of these companies multiple decades later. For example, for the multiple decades that Nortel was named Northern Telecom, their research and development arm was Bell Northern Research. Bell Canada and its holding-company parent, Bell Canada Enterprises, still use the Bell name and used variations the circled-bell logo until 1977, which until 1976 strongly resembled the 1921 to 1939 Bell System trademark shown above.

Subsidiaries and Bell Operating Companies Today

Before the 1984 break-up, the Bell System consisted of the companies listed below. These companies were divested from AT&T in 1984, except as noted. The former operating companies of the Bell System listed below are organized according to the current owners of the companies (or their successors). All of these companies, except for Cincinnati Bell, which remains independent, belong to AT&T, Verizon, or Qwest, the three remaining Regional Holding Companies (RBOCs). Beginning in 1991, the Baby Bells began to consolidate operations or legally rename their Bell Operating Companies according to the parent company name, such as "Bell Atlantic – Delaware, Inc." or "U S West Communications, Inc.", to "unify" the corporate image. To this day, the only remaining Baby Bell that has not renamed its operating companies are AT&T, formerly SBC Communications. Since 1995, there have only been 19 Bell Operating Companies, following the mergers of US West's and BellSouth's operating companies. Only 9 of those 19 have retained their original corporate name since their incorporation before 1984.

Before the 1956 break-up, the Bell System also included the companies listed below. Bell Canada, Northern Electric, and the Caribbean regional operating companies were considered part of the Bell System proper before the 1956 break-up. Nippon Electric was considered a more distant affiliate of Western Electric than Northern Electric, where Nippon Electric via its own research and development adapted the designs of Western Electric's North American telecommunications equipment for use in Japan, which to this day gives much of Japan's telephone equipment and network a closer resemblance to North American ANSI and Telcordia standards than to European-originated ITU-T standards. Before the 1956 break-up, Northern Electric was predominantly focused only on manufacturing without any significant amount of separate telecommunication-equipment research & development of its own. The post-WWII-occupation operation of NTT was considered an administrative adjunct to the North American Bell System.

Pop Culture

"Keep a cooker where the jar fell, And keep a cheap hooker that's off the hook like Ma Bell"
"Like Ma Bell, I got the ill communications"

See also

References

1. ^ AT&T Corporation. AT&T History: The Bell System. Retrieved on 2006-11-28.
2. ^ bell.com whois data

External links

Bell System
Corporate Operations
Holding Company: American Telephone & Telegraph
Local Telephone Operations
Bell Operating Companies: Bell Telephone Company of Nevada | The Bell Telephone Company of Pennsylvania | The Chesapeake & Potomac Telephone Company | The Chesapeake & Potomac Telephone Company of Maryland | The Chesapeake & Potomac Telephone Company of West Virginia | The Chesapeake & Potomac Telephone Company of Virginia | Diamond State Telephone | Illinois Bell | Indiana Bell | Michigan Bell | Mountain Bell | New England Telephone & Telegraph | New Jersey Bell | New York Telephone | Northwestern Bell | Ohio Bell | Pacific Northwest Bell | Pacific Telephone | South Central Bell | Southern Bell | Southwestern Bell | Wisconsin Telephone
Franchisees: Southern New England Telephone | Cincinnati Bell
Other AT&T Subsidiaries
Manufacturing: Western Electric
R&D Operations: Bell Labs
Long Distance Services: AT&T Long Lines
Wireless Services: Advanced Mobile Phone Service
trademark or trade mark[1] is a distinctive sign or indicator of some kind which is used by an individual, business organization or other legal entity to uniquely identify the source of its products and/or services to consumers, and to distinguish its products or
..... Click the link for more information.
service mark or servicemark. When a service mark is federally registered, the standard registration symbol ® or "Reg U.S. Pat & TM Off" may be used. Before it is registered, it is common practice (but has no legal standing) to use the term (SM), for example
..... Click the link for more information.
Motto
"In God We Trust"   (since 1956)
"E Pluribus Unum"   ("From Many, One"; Latin, traditional)
Anthem
..... Click the link for more information.
Telecommunication is the transmission of signals over a distance for the purpose of communication. In modern times, this process typically involves the sending of electromagnetic waves by electronic transmitters, but in earlier times telecommunication may have involved the use of
..... Click the link for more information.
A company is a form of business organization.

Types

There are various types of company that can be formed in different jurisdictions, but the most common forms of company are:
..... Click the link for more information.
American Telephone & Telegraph Company, in its later years simply AT&T Corporation, provided voice, video, data, and Internet telecommunications and professional services to businesses, consumers, and government agencies.
..... Click the link for more information.
The public switched telephone network (PSTN) is the network of the world's public circuit-switched telephone networks, in much the same way that the Internet is the network of the world's public IP-based packet-switched networks.
..... Click the link for more information.
divestment or divestiture is the reduction of some kind of asset for either financial goals or ethical objectives. A divestment is the opposite of an investment.

Divestment for financial goals


..... Click the link for more information.
Western Electric (sometimes abbreviated WE and WECo) was an American electrical engineering company, the manufacturing arm of AT&T from 1881 to 1995. It was the scene of a number of technological innovations and also some seminal developments in industrial management.
..... Click the link for more information.
Bell Laboratories (also known as Bell Labs and formerly known as AT&T Bell Laboratories and Bell Telephone Laboratories) is part of the research and development organization of Alcatel-Lucent and previously the United States Bell System.
..... Click the link for more information.
A consent decree is a judicial decree expressing a voluntary agreement between parties to a suit, especially an agreement by a defendant to cease activities alleged by the government to be illegal in return for an end to the charges.
..... Click the link for more information.
The telephone is a telecommunications device which is used to transmit and receive sound (most commonly speech). Most telephones operate through transmission of electric signals over a complex telephone network which allows almost any phone user to communicate with almost anyone.
..... Click the link for more information.
This page is currently protected from editing until disputes have been resolved.
Protection is not an endorsement of the current [ version] ([ protection log]).
..... Click the link for more information.
Caribbean (Dutch: Cariben or Caraïben, or more commonly Antillen; French: Caraïbe or more commonly Antilles; Spanish: Caribe
..... Click the link for more information.
BCE Inc.

Public (TSX:  BCE , NYSE:  BCE )
Founded 1880, by Charles Fleetford Sise
Headquarters Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Key people Michael J. Sabia (President)
Industry Communications Services
Revenue $19.
..... Click the link for more information.
Nortel Networks Corporation

Public
TSX:  NT
NYSE:  NT
Founded Montreal, Quebec (1895)
Headquarters Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Key people Mike Zafirovski, Vice Chairman, CEO & COO
CTO: John Roese
Industry Telecommunications, Networking
..... Click the link for more information.
Western Electric (sometimes abbreviated WE and WECo) was an American electrical engineering company, the manufacturing arm of AT&T from 1881 to 1995. It was the scene of a number of technological innovations and also some seminal developments in industrial management.
..... Click the link for more information.
ITT Corporation

Public (NYSE: ITT )
Founded 1995[1]
Headquarters White Plains, NY

Industry Defense
Website www.itt.com
ITT Corporation, NYSE:  ITT is a large American manufacturing company with 2006 revenues of $7.8 billion.
..... Click the link for more information.
NEC Corporation

Corporation TYO: 6701 , NASDAQ:  NIPNY
Founded Tokyo, Japan (1899)
Headquarters Tokyo, Japan

Key people Hajime Sasaki, Chairman of the Board; Akinobu Kanasugi, Vice Chairman of the Board; Kaoru Yano, President
Industry Electronics
..... Click the link for more information.
Allied powers:
 Soviet Union
 United States
 United Kingdom
 China
 France
...et al. Axis powers:
 Germany
 Japan
 Italy
...et al.
..... Click the link for more information.
Nippon Telegraph and Telephone

Public (NYSE:  NTT )
Founded 1985
Headquarters Tokyo, Japan

Key people Norio Wada CEO
Industry Telecommunications
Revenue ¥10760.
..... Click the link for more information.
The break up of AT&T was initiated in 1974 by the U.S. Department of Justice antitrust suit against the telephone monopoly. Under the terms of a settlement finalized on January 8, 1982, "Ma Bell" agreed to divest its local exchange service operating companies, in return for a
..... Click the link for more information.
lawsuit is a civil action brought before a court in which the party commencing the action, the plaintiff, seeks a legal remedy. One or more defendants are required to respond to the plaintiff's complaint.
..... Click the link for more information.
Competition is the rivalry of two or more parties over something. Competition occurs naturally between living organisms which coexist in an environment with limited resources. For example, animals compete over water supplies, food, and mates.
..... Click the link for more information.
Industry (from Latin industrius, "diligent, industrious"), is the segment of economy concerned with production of goods. Industry began in its present form during the 1800s, aided by technological advances, and it has continued to develop to this day.
..... Click the link for more information.
Department of Justice

Official seal
Agency overview
Formed June 22, 1870
July 1, 1870

Jurisdiction Federal government of the United States
Headquarters Robert F. Kennedy Building, Washington, D.C.
..... Click the link for more information.
19th century - 20th century - 21st century
1940s  1950s  1960s  - 1970s -  1980s  1990s  2000s
1971 1972 1973 - 1974 - 1975 1976 1977

Year 1974 (MCMLXXIV
..... Click the link for more information.
January 8 is the 1st day of the year (2nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 0 days remaining.

Events


..... Click the link for more information.
19th century - 20th century - 21st century
1950s  1960s  1970s  - 1980s -  1990s  2000s  2010s
1979 1980 1981 - 1982 - 1983 1984 1985

Year 1982 (MCMLXXXII
..... Click the link for more information.
19th century - 20th century - 21st century
1920s  1930s  1940s  - 1950s -  1960s  1970s  1980s
1953 1954 1955 - 1956 - 1957 1958 1959

Year 1956 (MCMLVI
..... Click the link for more information.


This article is copied from an article on Wikipedia.org - the free encyclopedia created and edited by online user community. The text was not checked or edited by anyone on our staff. Although the vast majority of the wikipedia encyclopedia articles provide accurate and timely information please do not assume the accuracy of any particular article. This article is distributed under the terms of GNU Free Documentation License.